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Tara High staff, students defend 'student rights to a fair grade' policy

tara high.jpg

Tara High School Principal Karen Triche, center, speaks about the "student right to a fair grade" policy with students and teachers at a meeting with the media on Nov. 22.
(Diana Samuels, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

The school held a meeting with reporters Friday morning to discuss the policy, which recently has drawn fire from critics including the proponents of the new city of St. George. They say the policy means students aren’t being held accountable, and are urging people to call state education officials to urge them to “stop the madness of EBR.”

On Friday, Tara staff members said the idea for the policy came from the school’s teachers, during meetings last spring to discuss why the school has too many students receiving F grades.

And once a student receives a bad grade on a test and can’t make it up, it often leads to a downward spiral, Tara Principal Karen Triche said.

“They’re going to cut the rest of the year because they view it as hopeless,” she said.

So teachers, with support from administrators, developed the “student rights to a fair grade,” a policy that has been in effect all year but was codified and handed out to students a couple of weeks ago. It says, among other points, that students have the right to request make-up assignments and re-take an assessment regardless of their initial score.

Associate Superintendent Orlando Ramos brought the policy to show other schools. So far, it’s also been adopted at Belaire High and could be implemented at other schools.

Teachers and school administrators on Friday emphasized that teachers have the final say over whether they grant a student a retake, even though the document says it is the student’s “right.” If a student fails a test, and then doesn’t go to tutoring and doesn’t put any effort into making sure they understand the concept better, the teacher doesn’t have to let them take it over. And if they do take it over, they’re probably going to fail again, the school officials said.

“The controversy that has come up this week is absurd,” said John Griffitt, a Tara history teacher. “No one has been asked to change a grade. Teachers don’t change grades. Students change grades,” by putting in the effort and learning the material.

Teachers said the goal is to make sure students are truly learning the material, rather than focusing on a letter grade. If they have trouble at first, but master a subject a little while later, that’s OK. And since curriculum tends to follow a path where it helps if students truly understand one concept before moving onto the next, teachers said it’s better for students to fix gaps in their knowledge now rather than waiting for summer school or to retake the course.

“What I’m hearing is we value the acquisition of knowledge,” Ramos said.

Students brought into the meeting said they’re fans of the policy. They said it’s not an incentive to slack off, and they still want to get good grades on the first try.

“You should always want to get it done the first time because why not get it out of the way right then and there,” said sophomore DaMonte Coxie.

Senior Akirah Brownfield said she had a classmate in one of her Advanced Placement classes that said the new policy wasn’t fair to him because he always does his homework on time. She said her teacher made a good point in her response. She asked, if one student gets a 30 on an ACT and another student gets a 15, the second student shouldn’t be allowed to retake it because the first student did well?

Asked whether students would face a different environment when they got to college, Griffitt said even universities are changing their attitudes. He said on LSU tours earlier this week, students were told that there was a lot of flexibility in assessments -- for example, students can reschedule tests if they decide they’re not ready, he said.

“Colleges are recognizing the fact that the old school days of giving the test in December over all the stuff you did and no other grades -- that doesn’t work,” he said. “It is not fair for me to put a whole book in front of you and have you tell me what that book is about. It doesn’t work.”